I was just wondering this the other day. Obviously some if not most of us can find out how many calories we need in order to lose weight, and it works, but I wonder how accurate it really is. I wonder this because a few days ago someone sent me one of the calculators they liked and said they trusted, and I plugged my stuff in:

age: 20
height: 4'9''
weight: 170

and suddenly a button popped up that basically said, "the height you have selected cannot be correct. allow us to fix it for you."

and they changed my age to 11.

I laughed out loud, but then I stopped to think about it. They're just machines and can't really see us or what we're made up of, so I wonder if, the more I get closer to a normal weight for my height, it will get easier to be more exact, and if right now is just a shot in the dark.

Does that make any sense? I just woke up sorry everyone! lol

You are wise to question the accuracy of tools that are one size fits all!

The issue with those calcs, with BMI measurements, and in general with trying to use guidelines based for everyone to be an exact thing for you...is that body composition, your personal metabolism, etc are not factored in.

If at your height and weight you were 18% body fat because you had insane muscle...then your food intake and BMI would be woefully wrong on those calcs.

They work best for those who are the fewest standard deviations from the mean. If you arent a typical build, typical metabolism, they wont work.

They are good *guidelines*, they are not gospel.

HAHAHA I have a daughter who is 19, your height and weighs all of 92 lbs. Imagine what those things say about her!

I actually do not have an answer for you because I never know how to calculate anything like that. But your post made me giggle.